Legal Opinions - U.S. District Court, Maryland: October 27, 2008

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Oct 27, 2008

U.S. DISTRICT COURT, MARYLAND

Constitutional Law

Americans with Disabilities Act

BOTTOM LINE: District court granted summary judgment, finding that Americans with Disabilities Act required the Washington Redskins and FedEx Field to provide auxiliary aids or services to hearing-impaired football game attendees.

CASE: Feldman v. Pro Football, Inc., No. AW-06-2266 (decided Sept. 30, 2008) (Judge Williams).

FACTS: Shane Feldman and two other plaintiffs (collectively Feldman) were deaf and hard of hearing, and long-time fans of the Washington Redskins football team who had attended many Redskins home games since the team began playing at FedExField. Pro Football, Inc. (PFI) was a Maryland corporation that owned and operated the Redskins. WFI Stadium, Inc. (WFI) was a Delaware corporation that owned and operated FedExField, which seated approximately 91,000 and was located in Landover, Maryland. WFI leased FedExField to PFI for the playing of Redskins home football games.

In August 2006, Feldman filed suit, in federal district court, against PFI and WFI alleging violations of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Feldman claimed that PFI and WFI did not provide deaf and hard of hearing fans equal access to the information and announcements broadcast over FedExField's public address system. In particular, he argued that PFI and WFI refused to provide auxiliary aids and services (specifically captioning) to ensure that announcements made over the public address system were effectively communicated to deaf and hard of hearing fans.

Prior to the 2006 football season, FedExField did not caption any announcements made over its public address system. The Redskins had always offered assisted listening devices to hard of hearing fans who requested one; however, the deaf plaintiffs did not benefit from assistive listening devices.

In 2002, Paul Singleton requested that the Redskins move his seats closer to the scoreboard, and the Redskins complied with that request.

In 2003, Shane Feldman sent an email to Todd Boyan of the Redskins requesting that the Redskins caption the stadium's public address system announcements on the Sony JumboTrons, the large screen television used to display video in sports venues, which were located in each end zone at FedExField. Feldman explained that captioning would help him understand referee calls, plays during the game, and emergency announcements. He exchanged further emails with Redskins personnel during 2003 and 2004 discussing captioning on the JumboTrons and a handheld captioning system known as Colorado Captioning.

Feldman filed suit in late August 2006, and served PFI and WFI on September 6, 2006. The Redskins' first home game of that season was on September 11, 2006. At that time, PFI and WFI still did not caption any of the material requested by the Feldman.

On October 15, 2006, FedExField began captioning certain aural content. PFI and WFI provided captioning services at every home game since then. PFI and WFI state that they intended to continue providing such captioning services indefinitely. Feldman, however, contested that contention, arguing that the captioning services can be shut off with the "flip of a switch." In addition, he complained that a local radio station, "Red Zebra," which broadcasted in the concourse area of the stadium, was not captioned.

The district court denied PFI and WFI's motion for summary judgment, and granted in part and denied in part Feldman's cross motion for summary judgment.

LAW: PFI and WFI argued that Title III of the ADA did not require them to provide deaf and hard of hearing fans any auxiliary services to ensure equal access to the aural information at FedExField other than assistive listening devices, which have always been available at FedExField, even though they did not help Feldman. PFI and WFI claimed that all information that is integral to the use of the stadium could be gathered solely from watching the game, and, moreover, that even if they were required to provide auxiliary aids and services to guarantee access to aural information, nothing in the law dictated that they provide captioning rather than other auxiliary services.

Title III of the ADA mandates that "[n]o individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases, or operates a place of public accommodation." 42 U.S.C. [section]12182(a).

The plain language of Title III discredited PFI and WFI's argument that additional auxiliary aids and services were unnecessary because the only integral information is the game play, which can be understood by deaf and hard of hearing fans simply by watching the game. Title III required PFI and WFI to provide "full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations" available at FedExField.

PFI and WFI provide more than a football game; they also provide public address announcements, advertisements, music, and other aural information to hearing fans at FedExField. That aural information was a good, service, facility, privilege, advantage, or accommodation. Without some form of auxiliary aid or service, Feldman would not have equal access to this information.